Letter Submission

To submit a letter to the editor, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Letters must contain the author's name, hometown (state as well, if not in New Hampshire) and phone number, but the number will not be published. We do not run anonymous letters. Local issues get priority, as do local writers. We encourage writers to keep letters to no more than 400 words, but will accept longer letters to be run on a space-available basis. Letters may be edited for spelling, grammar, punctuation and legal concerns.

James Madison understood our government would become a great power for good ... or for evil. Fearing the power of government, our Constitution restricted the enormous and coercive powers of government by adding a number of provisions within our Constitution and Bill of Rights. In fact the U.S. Constitution most likely would not have stood if the Bill of Rights had not been added.

Separating the power between the Executive branch, Congress and the Supreme Court was the paramount focus of the Constitution. To paraphrase the Constitution, Congress makes laws and has the power of the purse. The president is the executive responsible for enforcement of the laws passed by Congress, and the court is the independent arbiter. The clear intent was for each entity to have a separate power that would also counteract an abuse of power by another arm of our government.

In America today, our government bureaucracies, which are part of the executive branch, issue thousands of rules and regulations impacting every American. Our governmental bureaucracies have become very powerful. They can be very harmful to our society and our individual freedom. Rule by bureaucrats is coercive, expensive, undemocratic, unanswerable to voters, economically damaging, corrupting and violates our Constitution. Specifically rule by bureaucracy violates the separation of powers.

The secrecies, coercions, deceits and expenses of Obamacare are examples of rule by bureaucracy. Hillary Clinton's health care reform of the 1990s failed because it was too complex and Congress had to make too many tough decisions. Tom Daschle a former majority leader of the Senate wrote a book calling for Congress to pass general concepts and to empower a federal health-care board of experts to make difficult decisions. Congress has done just that.

In 2010, Congress and the president followed Daschle's advice passing a plainly unconstitutional directive of health insurance for everyone. Obamacare transferred enormous legislative powers to the Health and Human Services bureaucrats to make rules and regulations. The bureaucrats mandated the types of insurance policies, levels of coverages, eligibilities, procedures, doctors, hospitals, reimbursements, taxes and more. An army of bureaucrats are in command and control of the health care of America and 1/6th of our economy.

Dangerously, bureaucrats control much more of our lives than health care. From ethanol to the Internet to rain water, bureaucrats have oversight and control. Last year in the United States, there were 82,035 pages of proposed and finalized rules published by our federal agencies. At the same time, Congress passed 87 bills in 2015. Annually the federal bureaucracy enacts about 100 times as many new rules. That's a problem.

The federal bureaucracy has placed a regulatory burden upon American society and businesses that is complex, conflicted, and crushing. Little accountability exists when agencies, rather than Congress, enact the real substance of the law. It is time to reign in this abuse of power and process.

When looking at the candidates one tries to figure out which one has a message to agree with, plus the experience needed to avoid being captive to those he/she chooses as members of staff and cabinet. With the Bush administration I believe we saw what can happen when decisions are made without strong and experienced leadership.

There are candidates with virtually no experience in running such a massive organization. They seem to think that having held office for a very short time or, in one case managing an operating room, makes them qualified. Some have little sympathy for those living on minimum wage and speak about our environment as though it's something to waste. Others have had considerable experience in state government and are now unwanted by their own constituents.

We have candidates who refuse to believe scientists when that belief would require big donors conform to practices meant to save the planet. We have candidates who tell us what they're going to do "on the first day" when they know very well that presidents don't just rip things up. We have at least one candidate who has white supremacists following him and refuses to disavow their hateful beliefs. This same person throws people out of gatherings when he doesn't like their skin color or religion.

There are good candidates on both sides. They have shown outstanding leadership skills. They've held state and national office and are known to be level-headed under pressure. I might add that they are also liked and admired by those who work with them.

While it may be fun to encourage the angry ones, that won't get the job done. Let's look for the steady, knowledgeable person to run the Ship of State.